In the technical field referred to, a need has arisen to facilitate the fitting and adjustment of snow board bindings on footwear so that they can be adapted to the snowboarder's various requirements as well as to the existing shapes of foot and footwear.
In most cases, the footwear is held on the base of the binding by two or more strap fastenings, each formed by two straps which can be closed onto one another by a fastening device for varying the extent to which the straps are tightened onto the user's footwear. Both straps of the strap fastening are made of relatively stiff plastic material to ensure the necessary support and clamping of the footwear during sports activities.
However, owing to the stiffness of the material, the fitting of the binding on the footwear is obstructed by the two straps of the strap fastening which have to be deformed resiliently in order to move them apart for this purpose.
Typical snow board bindings are disclosed in International Patent Publication No. WO 00/76603.